


A Decadent Recipe

by PlayfulMay



Series: Word Challenges [3]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Cooking, F/M, Fluff, Food, Teasing, kitchen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:26:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6585058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayfulMay/pseuds/PlayfulMay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack teaches Phryne a little something in the kitchen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Decadent Recipe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarahtoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarahtoo/gifts).



> Thanks to Sarahtoo for the list of words.  
> The list will be in the notes at the end of the story. Good luck spotting which words were my challenge!

"This isn't what I meant by making it up to you ..."

"Well this is what I want," Jack smiled perfectly at her, peeling a potato slowly. Showing her how to do it. "If we're going to make shepherd's pie, you have to learn all this."

"I don't remember agreeing to it."

Jack paused in his focused task, laughed, and fastened her with a look that teetered into authoritative territory: "This is what I want."

Phryne shivered at the terrific thrill she had at his confidence. How could she say no to that? "I ... am afraid I don't know how to make it."

"Well that's why I'm teaching you," he said, noticing that she wasn't all that attentive to his instruction. When he gently tugged her over and gestured for her to try - offering her the freshly scrubbed potato - Phryne only took it in her hands and looked it over. "Go on, take the peeler."

"You make this look easy, and I'm going to make a complete fool of myself. Or prick my fingers on this damn thing."

Jack chuckled and moved in a little closer only to feel Phryne close the gap between them - her shoulder touching his chest.

"Show me how ...?"

Jack grinned at the back of her head. The nerve of that woman. She intended for him to wrap his arms around her and show her how to peel a potato of all things? Did she know how impossibly charming she was when she was asking for his help? He cursed inwardly at the octave of her voice when she was in need, and the vulnerable curl of her stance. Jack could only sigh and shake his head.

"Miss Fisher ..."

"Come on, Jack," she said, glancing over her shoulder at his smile. "Don't you want me to learn?" It almost sounded like earnest curiosity, and Jack found himself unable to decline.

"Alright. Just hold still," he warned seriously, tucking his arms under hers as he surrounded her completely. He looked toward their task with his left cheek to her right ear. Taking her smaller hands in his. "Okay ... hold it like this. And then peel down."

When Phryne slowly brought up her hand covered by Jack's, she brought the peeler to the top of the potato. Jack quickly guided her off. "No, that's too close. You don't want to cut yourself. Start here."

"Like this?" she asked breathlessly. Was she breathless? Jack paid close attention to the breath he felt with her back to his chest, and was surprised that she felt rather breathless indeed. Her inhales were coming in short and unsteady gusts. Jack kept his eyes on her hands for safety's sake, but his mind wandered.

"Yes. Much better."

They stood in the intimately entangled pose until Phryne was finishing the last of the peels. Jack then informed her they would need a knife, and Phryne asked for help.

"You can't be serious," he said just over her shoulder, immediately imagining the dagger she had most times resting against her thigh. Did she want him to reach for it? Could she possibly mean to tease him so mercilessly?

"My hands are wet and filthy from this potato," Phryne giggled, uncharacteristically unaffected by the idea of him touching her. "So yes I'm serious."

He would do it. She had touched him, adjusted his clothing, and flashed her bare skin more times than he could count. Surely an innocent touch wouldn't overcome her.

When Jack gathered the bottom of her skirt in his hand and pulled it smoothly up her leg, Phryne froze in ultimate disbelief. Was he ...?

Jack had gathered the material only to slide two fingers up from Phryne's knee to where she usually hid her garter concealing the dagger. But as his fingers wandered, all he felt was Phryne shivering in his arms.

"Th-that ... is not ... what I meant ..." she moaned accidentally, clearly in no fit state at the gentle caress of his fingers at her thigh.

Jack immediately blanched that he'd assumed she'd wanted him to touch her, but she had meant a true knife all along. She wasn't even carrying her dagger.

Phryne shook again when he wasn't withdrawing his hand. Could it be that for once, he was teasing HER? The hands stilled as she considered that possibility.

Phryne was in no hurry to swat his hands away, but she felt herself grow terribly weak with the table at her front and Jack's body at her back. There was no escape and no space to collect her resolve. And did she want to?

"It was an accident," Jack whispered at last, and Phryne couldn't tell if he was frozen from terror or arousal.

"An accident?" Phryne whispered back, her eyes closed at the sensation of his hands having travelled up her thigh. At the fingers that still held her skirt pinned up over her knee. "Well, you'd have a whale of a time convincing anyone of that."

Jack smirked because it was true. So many others had always insinuated there was more going on between them - that they were romancing one another in private - and there he was, lifting her skirt. He choked on his own breath when he realized he was still lifting her skirt, dropping it and resting his hands on the table ledge at either side of her instead.

Allowing her eyes to wander settled little tingles in her belly as Phryne glanced down to those familiar hands - hands that had only just been stroking the very sensitive flesh of her thigh. Hands that she had dreamt about more times than she would ever dare confess to Jack himself. They were hands equally as agile as hers, but stronger. He had the hands of a candymaker, she thought with a smile. She had always enjoyed imagining Jack's fingers partaking in such detailed tasks.

When she let her eyes drop a little further to his bare feet, Phryne exhaled all at once. He seemed so naked - so at ease. So confident. The idea of it all was pleasantly overwhelming.

Before Jack could speak, Phryne's hands were resting over his, and then she was turning in his arms to take his face in her palms.

"Jack ..." she started, admiring the glory of his eyes in the honest light of their situation. He wanted her so terribly - damn his self control!

"You ... make these things very difficult for me, Miss Fisher," he muttered, careful not to look at her lips when her eyes were fastened so lovingly on his.

"Are you calling me an annoyance?"

Jack smiled then, against her palms. "You're not annoying. You're ..." He looked up, at her. "You're perfect."

"I don't know that I like the sounds of that," Phryne teased. "Sounds like an awful lot to live up to, if you ask me."

"Then I'll be sure not to ask," he said with the smoothest voice she thought she'd ever heard. She immediately wondered how he'd sound freshly exhausted from a session in her bed. She cleared her throat when she started to envision ways in which to exhaust him.

"Mmm hmm ... well, I'm sorry we've paused your lesson on the making of this most ... decadent meal."

They were staring at one another in complete silence for a long while - taking in each other's unique features - until the sound of rain against the windows. The noise distracted Phryne, and she looked out to see the sky had grown a dark grey while Jack kept his eyes fastened on the exact angle of her jaw. The contrast of her lips to the rest of her porcelain skin.

The rainfall offered a welcome distraction, Phryne found, as she'd been awfully close to luring Jack in for a kiss. But Jack wasn't ready. She didn't know if he ever would be truly ready to take things further between them. She tried not to think about that, and instead, enjoyed the closeness of his body. The feelings he sent through hers.

"Better get out the candles ..." she breathed unevenly, leaning back against the kitchen table with Jack neatly pinning her there - whether by accident or with purpose, she didn't know. "In case of a storm."

"It would be a shame to be trapped here all night."

Phryne blinked up at him and found herself quite surprised to see him teasing her. Jack Robinson was most certainly teasing her back. And she wasn't about to let him think it offended her.

"Yes," she drawled with her usual finesse, petting his tie with agile fingers. "A shame indeed ..."

Jack caught her wrist in his hand, and clenched his teeth only to offer a most attractive view of his jaw to prying eyes. Phryne simmered and moaned.

"You know ... it won't be long until this whole place smells of my beeswax candles ... so you'd better get your fill now."

Was she insinuating he smell her? He grinned at the very ridiculous offer, but held her all the closer for it. "Miss Fisher ... I'd be careful what you ask of me at this very moment ... because I'm liable to give it to you."

Phryne's stomach interrupted with a quiet gurgling that distracted Jack's cutting gaze. He looked over her shoulder to the table of ingredients, and suddenly remembered what they were doing there.

When she realized he was not about to ignore her hunger, Phryne thought of the one thing he might give her after all.

"Feed me, Jack."

**Author's Note:**

> These were the challenge words:
> 
> whale  
> terrific  
> rainfall  
> ultimate  
> beeswax  
> candymaker  
> decadent  
> annoying  
> glory  
> gurgling
> 
> Did you guess these or others?  
> Thanks for reading! Comments appreciated as always!


End file.
